Dunnet Bay Caravan Club Site, Caithness

18 August 2017:- This was yet another easy day, something I think my husband was pleased to have, having admitted last night to being tired and retiring earlier than usual. I sat up far later than normal, trying to pick up a couple of emails with hefty attachments, only doing so because they were of a business nature and might well deserve an intelligent and timely response. All 14MB seeped into the computer over several hours but when the indicator line crept to show a full house, the whole system crashed. I went to bed, exhausted and furious. This morning whilst in Thurso. I managed to pick them up on my cellphone, screenshoot them and will connect up the USB cords later to transfer them over to this computer. Such are the frustrations of travelling , especially up here in the north of Scotland. We have been without satisfactory internet access since we left Banchory, and the blog instalments are piling up ready for posting, and photo Facebook updates to placate those who cannot be bothered with this wordy missive, must wait until we reach civilisation in the second week of September.

Mid-morning we headed into Thurso, Caithness’s largest township with a population of about 8,000 , or more specifically to Cathness Horizons, the regional museum. This excellent little museum opened its doors to the public in 2008, bringing together the Collections of the Thurso Heritage Society, The Highland Council and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, in the combined Victorian Gothic style Thurso Town Hall,  built in 1871 and the next door Carnegie Library, built in 1910.

On the top floor is an excellent exhibition all about the region’s history, both political, social and economic, and beyond an extensive exhibition explaining the nuclear installation just outside the town, which further explains the contribution by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).

Construction of the United Kingdom’s fast reactor research and development in Dounreay began in 1955, having a massive impact on the economic and social development of Caithness. 

In the 1950s Caithness was in decline. Since the beginning of the century its population had fallen by a third, from 36,000 to 23,000. There was no real industrial base and traditional industries like fishing and agriculture were reducing their workforce. Young people who wanted to get on all too often did so by getting out. Dounreay changed all that.

For a start, the construction workers needed to build the reactors and other plant had to be recruited, some 3,000 of them at the peak. Roughly half came from the local population, the rest having to be brought in and accommodated. Then there were the research scientists and technical specialists, almost all coming from outside the area, about 1,000 of them, but many bringing their families with them. The demand on housing, on schools and on other community facilities had to be met from a narrow existing base, offering a real challenge both to the UKAEA and to the local authority.

In time the direct employment at Dounreay stabilised at some 2,400 representing about 18% of the total Caithness workforce and injecting some £24 million a year into the local community. Needless to say this had a major impact on the region.

Back in the 1950s, the enthusiasm for all things nuclear included using atomic energy to replace conventional engines in various forms of transport. Many of these proved impractical, but in one specialist sector atomic propulsion found a place it still occupies today. With a nuclear reactor providing the heat for their steam turbines, warships could operate months at a time without the need to refuel. For submarines, the benefits were even greater. With a propulsion system that was independent of oxygen supply, they were transformed into fast, deep-diving vessels, able to stay underwater throughout very long cruises, roaming the seas as an invisible threat. The first nuclear powered submarine was USS Nautilus, launched in 1954. Once they had the capability to launch ballistic missiles from anywhere under the sea, nuclear submarines became the spear-tip of Cold War deterrent forces.

But early nuclear reactors were far too large to fit on a ship of any kind, so a major engineering programme was required to develop a new generation of reactors for the purpose. As part of the United Kingdom’s development programme the Royal Navy established an Admiralty Reactor Test Establihment, known as HMS Vulcan, next to the UKAEA Dounreay site, giving the project additional importance.

But outside the military requirements, the science behind the project was all about “breeding” more reactor fuel than had been used in the original process. So in theory, a “fast breeder” reactor could create its own fuel, reducing dependance on imported supplies of uranium and transforming operating economics. There was talk of producing electricity too cheap to meter.

By the late 1980s, Dounreay had demonstrated over a period of thirty years that the fast reactor concept could be made to work and to produce electricity, overcoming a host of technical problems on the way. It had cost far more that the £15 million initially allocated by Parliament, probably over a billion pounds in all, between 1955 and 1994. But the view from Caithness was that a demanding task had been tackled successfully and that further support for the site and its activities should be forthcoming.

However in the meantime the country seemed to have fallen out of love with nuclear power and with large, expensive public sector research establishments. Many of the early claims about the economics of nuclear power generation had proved to be wildly optimistic, even before the massive longer term costs of storing nuclear waste and dismantling old plant were factored in and the fast reactor itself had turned out to be more expensive than conventional reactor systems, not cheaper. In addition, the predicted global shortage of uranium never materialised, undermining the strategic case of adopting fast reactors. Fears about nuclear safety had burgeoned in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident in the USA and above all, after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. At the same time, Dounreay had experienced incidents which called its own safety record into question and weakened support for its continued operation among opinion.

This was all fascinating, taking in the simplified science and the spin off, however it was the next chapter, the decommissioning of Dounreay which appalled me. 

Even today this end process continues to play an important role in the economy too, employing 3,000 people across Scotland and still injecting approximately £80 million a year into the economy of Caithness and Scotland. Closing down a complex nuclear establishment has brought with it demands for skilled workers, highly trained and motivated. Decommissioning is providing new business opportunities and new courses for academic and vocational qualifications.

The aim is to establish the reputation of Caithness and the Highlands as a world-class base for expertise in nuclear clean-up, and expertise which will be in increasing demand throughout the country and abroad as more of the world’s early applications of nuclear technology reach the end of their natural lives. This process is expected to continue through to the latter part of the next decade. 

I am dismayed to learn the amazing cost and length of the decommissioning process; did they realise this when they started?

My head was still spinning as we headed back down to the river side to picnic in the car out of the cold wind. No doubt yours is too if you have persevered with this diatribe.

From Thurso, we headed about eight miles further west, and south into the Flow Country, the bog land lying between the coast and the Highlands, looking for Cnoc Freicedain, two long chambered cairns built over five thousand years ago, to commemorate the dead, or at least that’s what the archaeologists think.

We parked beside a pine forest and set off up onto hills covered by heather, tussock and sphagnum moss, to check these treasures out. Actually we found them rather unimpressive, but the views from the top were wonderful, down toward the coast over the nuclear site and up and down the coast, the distant views a little obscured by the approaching bad weather.

Back down at the roadside, we read the interpretative panels explaining the wind turbines visible over the forest but very audible with their thump, thump, thump. The Baillie Wind Farm has a total of twenty one turbines producing 170 GWh of electricity per annum, an amount equal to the needs of 35,000 homes. But these turbines are only a fraction of those we have seen all around Caithness, or even Scotland since we have been travelling about.